What's the 'Snope' on Snopes?

[BigBoyinMS]

I just read this on another forum and thought it was interesting. I did do a 'whois' to verify the domain is owned by a David Mikkelson.

Don't know if the story is true but it would not surprise me.

 

 

Truth about SNOPES

For the past few years _www.snopes.com_ (http://www.snopes.com/) has positioned itself, or others have labeled it, as the 'tell all final word' on any comment, claim and email.

 

But for several years people tried to find out who exactly was behind _snopes.com_ (http://snopes.com/). Only recently did Wikipedia get to the bottom of it - kinda makes you wonder what they were hiding. Well, finally we know. It is run by a husband and wife team - that's right, no big office of investigators and researchers, no team of lawyers. It's just a mom-and-pop operation that began as a hobby.

 

David and Barbara Mikkelson in the San Fernando Valley of California started the website about 13 years ago - and they have no formal background or experience in investigative research. After a few years it gained popularity believing it to be unbiased and neutral, but over the past couple of years people started asking questions who was behind it and did they have a selfish motivation? The reason for the questions - or skepticisms - is a result of _snopes.com _ (http://snopes.com/) claiming to have the bottom line facts to certain questions or issue when in fact they have been proven wrong. Also, there were criticisms the Mikkelsons were not really investigating and getting to the 'true' bottom of various issues. I can personally vouch for that complaint. A few months ago, when my State Farm agent, Bud Gregg, in Mandeville hoisted a political sign referencing Barack Obama and made a big splash across the internet, 'supposedly' the Mikkelsons' claim to have researched this issue before posting their findings on _snopes.com_ (http://snopes.com/) . In their statement they claimed the corporate office of State Farm pressured Gregg into taking down the sign, when in fact nothing of the sort ever took place.

 

I personally contacted David Mikkelson (and he replied back to me) thinking he would want to get to the bottom of this, and I gave him Bud Gregg's contact phone numbers - and Bud was going to give him phone numbers to the big execs at State Farm in Illinois who would have been willing to speak with him about it. He never called Bud. In fact, I learned from Bud Gregg that no one from _snopes..com_ (http://snopes.com/) ever contacted anyone with State

Farm. Yet, _snopes.com_ (http://snopes.com/) issued a statement as the 'final factual word' on the issue as if they did all their homework and got to the bottom of things - not!

 

Then it has been learned the Mikkelsons are very Democrat and extremely liberal. As we all now know from this presidential election, liberals have a purpose agenda to discredit anything that appears to be conservative. There has been much criticism lately over the internet with people pointing out the Mikkelsons' liberalism revealing itself in their website findings. Gee, what a shock?

 

So, I say this now to everyone who goes to _www.snopes.com_ (http://www.snopes.com/) to get what they think to be the bottom line facts...'proceed with caution.' Take what it says at face value and nothing more. Use it only to lead you to their references where you can link to and read the sources for yourself. Plus, you can always google a subject and do the research yourself. It now seems apparent that's all the Mikkelsons do. After all, I can personally vouch from my own experience for their 'not' fully looking into things.

[Grey beard]

Its an urban legend. I append a file from http://www.truthorfiction.com about that. In addition, if you traipse to the local library and get last month's Readers Digest, it carries an article on Snopes, and how they ferret out the details of questions submitted to them.

 

Greybeard

[Grey beard]

Oops. Forgot to append the file. Here it is:

Snopes.com is a secret tool of the Democratic Party to promote Barack Obama- Fiction!

Summary of the eRumor:

An eRumor about Snopes.com accusing them being owned by a flaming liberal and this man is in the tank for Obama.

The Truth:

In October, 2008, stories began circulating via forwarded emails that the popular urban legends site Snopes.com was owned by liberals and was "in the tank" for presidential candidate Barack Obama.

As with many forwarded emails, the criticism did not include any example of what the writer of the email claimed was the difference between what Snopes.com reported and what Barack Obama had actually said.

Snopes.com is an excellent site that has become an authoritative source for information about urban legends and forwarded emails. We regard David and Barbara Mikkelson, the founders and operators of Snopes.com, as colleagues and professional researchers who have earned a good reputation for what they do.

 

We can give a unique perspective on this story because we do the same kind of work as Snopes.com and have sometimes been the target of similar criticism.

 

We've got a collection of emails that have come to TruthOrFiction.com accusing us of being "right wing whackos" as well as "liberals" and "communists." We've been suspected of being owned and operated by both Republicans and Democrats. We've been called "Christian propagandists" as well as "atheists pretending to be neutral." We occasionally receive emails that have elaborate theories about who "really" owns us and what our "real" motives are.

The bottom line is that if you try to report the truth, there will be those who don't like the truth you've reported and who will develop suspicions about why you did.

That, in our view, is what is happening with Snopes.

The 2008 presidential campaign has been one of the most intense and unique in our nation's history and has prompted more political eRumors than any presidential campaign in our experience, especially about Barack Obama.

These anti-Snopes emails have probably been prompted by someone who does not like Barack Obama and does not like the fact that Snopes (or TruthOrFiction.com for that matter) has debunked some of the emails that are not true about him.

[BigBoyinMS]

Well, I'm glad to know they are as reliable as I always thought. The liberal extremist part would have just been an extra negative.

[mraf]

Seems you can't believe anything anymore if you see it or read it. Take everything with a grain of salt. I have one question though "Who did we ask before the internet and Google"?

[Ivan]

They're all a bunch of right wing liberal communist conservatives.

[pegscraper]

If Wikipedia did that, there should be an article on Wikipedia about it then. Whatever the story is about them, snopes is not to be trusted in matters of politics or religion.

[greg_in_london]

I found the story in question, it's at:

http://snopes.com/photos/politics/chicken.asp

 

It was updated a few days ago and refutes the above comments.

I couldn't see any reference to there having been pressure to remove the sign.

 

To me the original quoted email looked like mud slinging as there were no references beyond a link to snopes. Comments like 'Then it has been learned that...' really need a reference and can't stand by themselves, not when it's making comments about individuals.

 

Declaration of interest: I quite like snopes and discovered it through this site.

[Guest seuadr]

Comments like 'Then it has been learned that...' really need a reference and can't stand by themselves..

 

not to mention it's just really horrible english